1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to tape recorders employing LSI in its main control system, and more precisely, to tape recorders which offer special features such as auto-repeat, auto-reverse, etc., through the additional use of a simply designed circuit.
2. Description of Prior Art
In the past, nearly all tape recorders were in principle controlled mechanically. That is, they were designed to accomplish functions such as recording, reproducing, etc., mechanically in conjunction with the operation of the operating switches.
Because of the great number of components used for such tape recorders, however, their assembly has become extremely complicated, and the weight of the tape recorder itself has increased markedly with corresponding inconvenience of transportation.
More recently, therefore, in order to eliminate these inconveniences, a new feature has been introduced which uses LSI in its main control system. This allows functions such as recording, reproducing, etc., to be carried out electrically through the operation of the keys.
However, similar recorders have failed to add special features such as auto-repeat which automatically repeats the sequence of reproduction--tape rewinding--reproduction; or auto-reverse which continually records or reproduces AB phases of the tape, because they have LSI in the main control system which limits the scope of operation. Consequently, addition of these special features to the tape recorder required the specific re-design of the LSI itself, making it impractically expensive.